With tenacity and passion, Hun-Val Dairy is bringing direct-from-the-farm bottled milk back to the Garden State

When thinking about dairy states, New Jersey does not immediately—or perhaps, ever—come to mind. We rank 42^nd in milk production—and yet, surprisingly, our state has produced several important innovations that led to more productive dairies and cleaner milk nationwide. The Certified Milk designation, which once identified raw milk that was free from pathogenic bacteria (and, thus, safe to drink), was developed by Newark pediatrician Henry Coit in 1893. The Rotolactor, an automated cow carousel that enabled 50 cows to be milked in under 15 minutes, was introduced at Walker-Gordon in Plainsboro in 1930. And in 1939, the first calf in the U.S. created using artificial insemination was born at a dairy farm in Stanton.

At Hun-Val Dairy and Creamery in Ringoes, Jared Weeks has also been innovating—taking bottled milk back toward an old idea that meets the new demands of the local food movement for greater transparency in the food system and the reconnection of taste to place. For more than a decade, he’s been moving away from selling his milk to large processors and back to small-scale, local, and direct-from-the-farm—a move he believes represents a path to viability for dairy farms in our state.

A Proven Model

“New Jersey has already proven what model works for New Jersey,” Weeks says. “As you drive around, all the silos you see—they were all little family dairy farms [at one time]. They milked 40, 50 cows. And there was a little creamery that picked up milk from those little dairy farms. And then they supplied the little stores in town. It’s the model everybody wants to get back to—where everyone felt good about every step of the process.”

Growing up next to a dairy farm, Weeks was introduced to dairying through 4-H and got his first job at that neighboring farm. “I was there until he sold his cows,” Weeks says, “and then after that hopscotched around to other farms.” In 2006, shortly after graduating from high school, he rented a dairy farm and began to build his own herd. Around 2008, he and his then-girlfriend, now wife, Treacy, built a dairy barn on her parents’ farm, which has been in her family since 1888 and had operated as a dairy farm up through her grandparents’ generation.

When Treacy’s ancestors purchased their farm in the low rolling hills just north of the village of Ringoes, dairy farming in Hunterdon County was undergoing significant changes. Beginning in 1881, small creameries were being built in towns throughout Hunterdon. Started by farmer-led creamery associations or by private individuals, they used milk from local farms to make cheese and replace the on-farm production of butter—eliminating, in the words of one contemporary reporter, “the most soul harrowing and back breaking duties of the farmer’s wife.”

While farmers and dairy dealers still distributed milk and butter locally via horse-drawn milk wagons, new urban markets were increasing the demand for milk, which was shipped, along with butter and other agricultural products, by railroad from rural communities such as Ringoes. Tanker trucks eventually replaced train cars and large processing facilities became the industry standard for consolidating and bottling milk.

As milk traveled through more hands and farther from the farm, it became a commodity that was disconnected from farm and place, leaving dairy farmers at the mercy of outside forces dictating price. From the start, farmers attempted to raise farm pricing by forming dairy producer associations, which were locked in a constant, and often unsuccessful, battle to provide fair compensation to farmers.

Eventually, the federal government stepped in with regulations and price controls that are baffling to those outside the industry. All the while, the number of dairy farms in our state steadily declined from thousands of family farms to just 32 at the start of 2025.

Cow to Bottle: On-Farm Processing

As he struggled to remain economically viable in the commodity dairy industry, Weeks sought, and eventually found, a rarity in modern dairying: a small-scale processor in Pennsylvania that was willing to separate his milk and bottle it for him under the Hun-Val Farm label.

In May 2015, he announced that Hun-Val now had available “the only NJ single source, pasteurized, non-homogenized whole milk you can purchase.” Weeks sold his milk, along with cheese and ice cream made from it, in his farm store and at select retailers, starting with Brick Farm Market in Hopewell. He also entered a partnership with Jon McConaughy, owner of Brick Farm Market and Doublebrook Farm, to create the Red Barn in Ringoes—a seasonal outdoor ice-cream-and-burger joint to which Weeks supplied the cream and milk for the ice cream and McConaughy supplied the pasture-raised meat for the burgers and hot dogs. Weeks used this time and these outlets to build the Hun-Val brand and cultivate a loyal customer base, all the while working toward his ultimate goal: to pasteurize and bottle his own milk on his family’s farm, where his customers could see the entire operation from cow to bottle.

• • •

At the start of 2022, Hun-Val Dairy reported, via social media, that they were about to break ground on a new dairy processing facility at the farm. Throughout the year, he and his wife chronicled the construction of the building and the arrival of creamery equipment, including a 1952 Chevrolet 6400 milk truck that would be used to haul milk from the dairy barn to the creamery for processing. In January 2023, they posted that “‘Covid delays’ have kept us very humble through this whole build, but we can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.”—never suspecting that it would be two more years before that light was finally reached.

On April 25, 2025, Hun-Val announced that they were now officially bottling their milk at the farm, and went on to thank their community, friends, and family for their support and encouragement throughout the process. Weeks also praises the NJ Department of Agriculture (NJDA), the Farm Bureau, and the County Board of Ag for being extremely helpful and supportive in advocating for this project and moving it forward.

“Building a business like this takes a large commitment of time and resources, but could reduce the impacts of a volatile commodity market,” Dan Wunderlich, dairy administrator for NJDA, writes in an email. He notes that on-farm processing is different than the production side of dairying—a second business that adds an additional layer of tasks and regulations that Weeks must adhere to. “Jared is one of our newer generation of dairy producers,” Wunderlich writes, “who exhibits those qualities needed to add a second business to their current dairy operation.”

Although the length of time that passed between the construction of the building and the start of processing was long and frustrating, Weeks used that time to fine-tune the equipment layout, based on observations he made while visiting other creameries where owners told him all of the things they would now do differently. “If I build something, I don’t want to look at something every day and think, ‘Man, I should have had that over there,’” Weeks says. “That was the nice thing about having the building done for a long time. We actually mocked it up with cardboard cutouts. I’m really happy with how it’s all set up and it flows nicely.”

A Custom-Built Operation

The processing room of the Hun-Val creamery is divided, roughly, in half with one side left in a flexible state where equipment can be rolled into place to perform the day’s task, whether that be butter making or ice cream production. In the other half sits the piece of equipment that makes the whole operation possible—his custom-built pasteurizing unit from Bruns Bros. in Maine. Because they manufacture large processing equipment for companies such as Ben & Jerry’s, it took a bit of work to persuade Bruns to build a smaller unit for Hun-Val.

“When I ordered this, they didn’t just have one on the shelf,” says Weeks. “They build pasteurizing units that would fill up half of this room. But the owner, Ken Bruns’, roots were in the dairy industry. It’s just something that he’s passionate about. That’s the thing, all along the way it’s just relationships that you build.”

The unit at Hun-Val is a High Temperature, Short Time pasteurizer. But, as Weeks explains, Bruns Bros. reconfigured this model so that it can do high volume, even when run at a lower temperature—allowing Weeks to bottle milk that is lightly pasteurized. (In NJ, milk must be pasteurized at a minimum of 145° for at least 30 minutes.)

After cooling, the milk is bottled in glass bottles and plastic jugs, as well as plastic bags for schools and food service. Hun-Val only offers whole milk—no skim or low fat. The butterfat content is currently running 4.3% and, because it isn’t homogenized, the milk has a layer of cream on the top that the customer can incorporate by shaking the bottle.

Noting that his milk only travels a few hundred feet from his milking barn to the pasteurizer, Weeks says that on-farm processing allows him to preserve the nutritional quality and flavor.

“I’m used to drinking raw milk, right from the tank, and you can’t tell the difference in taste, mouthfeel, all that stuff,” Weeks says, adding that the glass bottles also make a difference. “It’s definitely got a better taste. A lot of people have said that—and I kind of always thought ‘OK, whatever, glass makes it taste better.’ But it does. It really does.”

Packaging in glass requires more work on the part of creamery as the returned bottles must be sanitized—and then re-sanitized just before bottling. And the bottles are expensive, which is why customers pay a deposit that covers the replacement cost of the bottle if it doesn’t get returned.

Although his pasteurizer has the capacity to process 400 to 500 gallons per hour, Weeks currently bottles about 200 gallons of milk a week, which represents a small percentage of the overall production of his herd. As he works to grow his market, Weeks still sells the bulk of his milk to the Pennsylvania creamery that processed his milk before he had a pasteurizer.

“They buy milk from several local farms,” Weeks says. “They wanted to know what I was feeding the cows, if the cows went out on grass, how we did things with medicine, and all that kind of stuff—which I liked. It’s nice to deal with people who care about what’s going into the finished product.”

Weeks plans to eventually add a cream separator to his facility, but, for now, the creamery separates out cream from his milk and sends it back as heavy cream, half and half, and butter. His ice cream, which is packaged under the Red Barn label, is also currently being produced elsewhere using Hun-Val cream and the Hun-Val recipe. And the Hun-Val mobile ice cream stand is in high demand at local events—providing another opportunity to talk with the public about the farm and their products.

Unlike large dairies, which are highly specialized, Weeks and his extended family have multiple farm-based enterprises. Along with managing the creamery and farm store, Weeks grows all the feed for his cows, selling off excess as a cash crop. He and his wife board horses on their farm, which is down the road from the creamery. Treacy’s family sells farm equipment, Christmas trees, and seed. And she and her sister run the annual Everitt Farms at Pumpkin Junction corn maze.

“We always kind of laugh,” Weeks says. “There’s the saying: It used to be the farm could support three families, and now it’s like you have to do four different things to support the farm.”

Along with Hun-Val’s milk, cream, cheese, and ice cream, the farm store also stocks eggs from the farm and produce, which Weeks brings in from other local farms. “If I’ve learned one thing, it’s you can only wear so many hats well. There’s people that are passionate about growing produce and I am happy to support them. You can only do so much.”

Heart & Herd

Easy-going and confident, Weeks seems to be well-suited to dairy farming, which, to the observer, looks like a daily barrage of unpredictable events punctuated by the unchanging rhythm of twice-daily milkings. He observes of himself and other dairy farmers that a love of cows—as well a commitment to good management practices—is an essential quality of a good dairy farmer and an emotional anchor that keeps them going through the industry’s economic upheavals.

Weeks maintains a “closed” herd, which means that, rather than buying cows from other farms, his cows are born on the farm and remain there throughout their lives. In all, he has about 150 cows, ranging in age from one day old to, at present, 17 years old—an anomaly in the dairy industry where, according to Dairy Herd magazine, the average lifespan of a U.S. dairy cow is about five years.

“Cow turnover,” says Weeks, “is my least favorite thing with this industry. It’s very, very hard for me to get rid of cows. We have a number that are over 10. Those are my favorite cows in the barn most of the time, because they’re just no-nonsense. They know what they’re doing. They just do their job.” He adds, with a laugh, “As opposed to the 2-year-olds. They’re not sure what’s going on. They kick and step around and go in the wrong stall and all that kind of stuff.”

The Hun-Val herd is half Holsteins, which provide a high volume of milk, and half Brown Swiss, whose milk is higher in butterfat and protein. At any given time, Weeks is milking 45 to 50 of his cows. Each cow has a name and, according to Weeks, its own personality.

“The Brown Swiss definitely seem to be more personable,” he says. “Holsteins are kind of like ‘We have a job to do, just get out of our way.’ If you walk out in the field, the Swiss will be all around you.” The Brown Swiss are also, Weeks notes, the first ones out of the gate as they head to pasture after the morning milking and the first ones at the pasture gate to come in for the evening milking. As the cows walk from the barn to the pasture, they pass through a culvert under a small one-lane bridge. This twice-daily procession is an important touch point between the farm and the community.

“IF SOMEONE WALKED IN HERE TODAY AND SAID THEY WANTED TO MILK COWS IN NEW JERSEY, I’D SAY HERE’S ALL THE SECRETS I KNOW. LET ME SAVE YOU SOME STEPS.”

“In the afternoons, we get the cows back in at the same time, and it coincides with the Delaware Township School bus,” Weeks says. “That school bus driver—I don’t know her, but I love her because she will park, put her four-ways on, and wait for me to open the gate and let the cows go under. The kids are glued to the window and the cows go under the road and then the kids go to the other side of the bus and they’re looking again. Every day it’s the highlight of their day and it’s the highlight of mine, most days.”

Videos, photographs, and stories of the procession, new calves, and cow antics posted on the farm’s Facebook page connect customers to the daily joys and challenges of dairy farming. Those posts are infused with humor and gratitude, and, in response, Weeks gets a lot of questions—the most frequent being: How do you get the cows to come in from the pasture to the barn?

“Literally, I walk out, open the gate,” he says. “They’re usually way out in the pasture, so I whistle a couple of times and they run to the barn. You just open the gate and get out of their way.”

At present, all the milk processing is done by Weeks, his wife, and his sister. His goal is to hire someone to help, once he feels he knows every bit of the process well enough to train another person to uphold his quality standards. He is also exploring the idea of opening an off-farm shop where he will sell his ice cream and maybe a bit of food—something along the lines of Red Barn, which, though beloved, closed at the end of the 2022 season.

“If I opened another place tomorrow, I would have the same exact staff,” Weeks adds. That includes the ice cream maker who Weeks describes as “a mad scientist” able to tweak any batch of ice cream to the state of perfect mouthfeel and flavor.

“One thing I’ve learned through all this is that my passion is the cows and milk production,” Weeks says. “With the ice cream, if I find somebody who is equally as passionate about ice cream as I am about my portion of the business, I am not opposed to plugging somebody in who is going to be able to dedicate more time and energy and give a better product.”

Multiplying the Impact

Although Weeks is just ramping up his milk production and building his market, he is already thinking about inspiring other farmers to get their own on-farm pasteurizers.

“I don’t think it’s ever good to be the only one,” he says. “There’s a certain amount of infrastructure that goes along with supporting a dairy farm—supplies and repairs and all that kind of stuff. If you go out to Lancaster County, where there’s a dairy farm every half a mile, if they need a part for their vacuum pump, they just walk down the street and get it. If I need one, I have to drive three hours or wait for it to come in the mail. With milking cows, if something breaks, you’re dead in the water instantly. People don’t realize that all of the support and infrastructure goes away when there’s not enough people doing it. I wish there was more [dairy farms] starting up because it would bring some of that back. But that’s probably a pipe dream on my end.”

When asked if, upon reflection on 20 years of dairy farming, he would have chosen a different path, Weeks is emphatic in his response. “No. I wouldn’t change anything,” he says. “Obviously, if you knew all the secrets going in, you’d do things a little different to maybe skip some of the hard steps. But if someone walked in here today and said they wanted to milk cows in New Jersey, I’d say here’s all the secrets I know. Let me save you some steps, hopefully. I’d like to have this be a model that is transferable to other producers.”

His challenge now is to convert his sizable investment into long-term financial viability. “It’s a long-term business, but the costs are very short-term. We have a lot of money invested in this, which I don’t regret,” he says. “On the commodity milk side, there was never really a huge light at the end of the tunnel. There were little up-ticks where you felt better, like, ‘Wow, I could almost pay all my bills this month.’ But then the next month was terrible.”

“[Hun-Val] is a steady progression,” he continues. “Last week we processed this many. This week we need half again as much because we sold it all. We’re climbing the mountain in the right direction. And you can control your prices. We know exactly how much it takes to put milk in a bottle. Our milk is $4.50 a half gallon. And then the initial $2 bottle deposit. We’re not getting rich off that. It’s just what it costs, with a margin so that we can survive.”

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When customers purchase Hun-Val’s milk, they are supporting a local farm while also helping to preserve the cultural side of agriculture—the heritage, the traditions, and the relationships between a farmer and his community, livestock, and land. Buying local milk from a single farm allows the consumer to tie taste to place and to support a working landscape where grazing cows, hayfields, and dairy barns provide a welcome alternative to warehouses and big-box stores. And they are participating in a local food economy where the production methods and benefits to the community are easy to see.

Affable and kind, Weeks has the personable manner needed to easily interface with the public. And, while he speaks confidently about the future, he is careful about the pace of his growth. These qualities will serve him well as he attempts to return milk to New Jersey’s pantheon of local foods.

The persistent and burning question is whether there are enough consumers who value quality and the transparency of a short supply chain to support local dairy farms with their food dollars. The answer to that question will determine not only Hun-Val’s future. It will also impact the future of our landscape, the quality of our food, and the viability of our farms.

WHERE TO FIND

Hun-Val’s products are sold at the farm and at several farm stores and stands, including Lima Family Farm in Hillsborough, Baldwin Farms in Washington, and Sweet Hollow Farm Stand in Bloomsbury.

“We’re talking to a couple of different retail locations. We’ve had a lot of interest, but we’re walking right now,” Weeks says. “The last thing I wanted to do was not be fully comfortable with all the ins and outs of everything and have a bajillion orders and then have to circle back.”

The Hun-Val farm store is self-serve and takes Venmo and cash. New Jersey has two other on-farm milk processors—Spring Run Dairy in Pittstown and Springhouse Creamery in Newton—and five cheesemakers making cheese from their own milk.

HUN-VAL DAIRY AND CREAMERY
258 County Rd. 579, Ringoes
908.619.3571
facebook.com/HunValDairyFarm